Recommendations from Various People

We also have a list of books that have been suggested by several people. "Who suggested what" is the most interesting part, so names will be kept in this section. Technical books are rigidly excluded, though popular science ones are OK. So, what are your favorite books? Send me your list!.

Fred Drake

• Startide Rising, The Uplift War, Brightness Reef, Earth, Glory Season, all by David Brin.

  "Dr. Brin is an astrophysicist who also writes wonderfully imaginative and highly detailed science fiction. Most of the books I've listed are set in a far future when humans have made contact with galactic civilization, and it doesn't believe any sentient race could have evolved."

Dirk Heise

• The Peter Principle; Laurence J. Peter, Raymond Hull; Hardcover.

  "This book explains why incompetence is not an exception but the rule. It changes the way you look at the world, and from the moment you've read it, you will never more complain about incompetent officers, bosses, taxi drivers, housewives or whatever. You will understand how they became incompetent, and tolerate incompetence, as a fight against it could never be won. In other words: This book makes you a happy person."

  (This is a revision of an older book; most libraries will have a copy of the original.)

Richard Jones

• ... everyone should read Snow Crash and The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson and Interface by Stephen Bury (pen name for Stephenson and his uncle, J.Frederick George). The first is a Must Read for anyone in the computing industry (and indeed there have been reports of CEOs walking into meetings, throwing the book down on the table and stating "there's our business plan").

A.M. Kuchling

• The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing; David Kahn; Hardcover.

  "An interesting history of cryptography. This 1996 edition includes a not-very-complete chapter on recent developments like public-key cryptography, but the book is best when covering earlier periods of history."

• The Computer Contradictionary; Stan Kelly-Bootle; Paperback.

• The New Hacker's Dictionary; Eric S. Raymond; Paperback.

• Peter Greenaway is an excellent director, but his screenplays are often even better than the actual movies. The Pillow Book is his most recent work, and is interesting, though flawed. The Falls is a weird fictional documentary about the Violent Unknown Event, whose exact nature is never specified, but somehow involves the animosity of birds. Ones I haven't yet read include The Baby of Macôn, Flying Out of This World.

• The Mysterium

  "Eric McCormack's work is dark and Kafkaesque at times; like Greenaway, he sometimes leaves you trying to interpret the events, trying to put the pieces together into a coherent pattern. This is a short novel in which the protagonist chronicles the slow murder of an entire small village."

• The Trial of Elizabeth Cree

  "Peter Ackroyd's novels aren't as dark as McCormack's work, and the use of historical settings reminds me of Neil Gaiman. This novel mixes historical figures like Karl Marx with a series of gruesome murders in Victorian-era London. The identity of the killer turns out to be a surprise..."

• At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, The Dunwich Horror and Others, The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions

  "The definitive editions of H.P. Lovecraft's work, edited by noted Lovecraft scholar S.T. Joshi. Try The Dunwich Horror and Others as an introduction to Lovecraft."

• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, the Universe and Everything, and So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, by Douglas Adams..

  "There's also a fifth book in the series, Mostly Harmless, but the ending may disappoint you."

Daniel Larsson

• The Liar; Stephen Fry; Paperback.

  "Funny, interesting and outrageous."

• Einstein's Dreams; Alan Lightman; Paperback.

  "A strange little book about a patent clerk and his wild dreams about time..."

• Alice in Wonderland; Lewis Carroll; Paperback.

  "A classic children's novel I keep reading. The puns and plays with words are fantastic."

• And the Ass saw the Angel; Nick Cave; Paperback.

  "Yes, it's by the singer Nick Cave. A mysterious book about an outcast family; a deaf and mad son of a drunken mother and a hunting father. Not for the faint of heart."

Frederik Lundh

• Sacrament; Clive Barker; Paperback. Everything else by him is recommended, too.

• A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters; Julian Barnes; Paperback.

• Ender's Game; Orson Scott Card; Paperback.

• American Tabloid; James Ellroy; Paperback.

  "Anything else by this author is also good." (The author also wrote L.A. Confidential.)

• The Liar; Stephen Fry; Paperback.

• Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman; James Gleick; Paperback.

• Solaris; Stanislaw Lem; Paperback. Again, anything else by this author is also highly recommended.

• The Hobbit; J.R.R Tolkien.

Karl Nissen

• Stranger In A Strange Land; Robert A. Heinlein; Paperback.

Aaron Watters

• The Dilbert Principle; Scott Adams; Paperback.

  "Depressingly close to reality, sometimes. That's why it's funny and sad too."

• How to Win Friends and Influence People; Dale Carnegie; Paperback.

  "Computer people may be good with machines, but they're generally clueless about people. This is a 'feel good' book with a dark subtext - everyone is basically egotistical and selfish. If you want them to like you and do what you want, put it in those terms. Don't expect to master the material - it's too hard - but some of the insights might make dealing with other people more pleasant and rewarding."

• Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM; Paul Carroll; Paperback.

  "Important reading for anyone who thinks that large corporations know what they are doing, or that market dominance in the computer industry is permanent."

• The Soul of a New Machine; Tracy Kidder; Paperback.

  "Captures the life of a computer-engineering organization nicely. Better than the best mystery, and no one has to die."